If you want to understand the most painful point of Santa Clara County’s drought, head east from Highway 101 on Half Road in Morgan Hill until you reach Andy’s Orchard. On 85 acres of prime farming land stretching toward the foothills, Andy Mariani and his brother Mitch grow prize Bing cherries and a selection of nectarines, peaches and apricots.

As of May 1, the Marianis face a new and harsh world that has never intruded on Half Road before. The Santa Clara Valley Water District has told them that their supply of surface water, which they use to irrigate their trees, is being cut off.

“We’ve been relying on surface water for years,” says Andy Mariani, a tall, tanned man who has won awards for his produce. “We’ve been up here since 1957. We went through droughts, when we had to be careful. But never cutting us off at the hip.”

Oddly for a potential amputee, the orchard is at its most glorious now. The Bing cherry trees have bloomed in the last few weeks, and the rows of trees recall Santa Clara County of two generations ago. Tiny sprinklers keep the ground wet without wasteful puddles of water.

Unparalleled pressure

The water district — I will forgo calling it the Golden Spigot in this situation, because they are not the bad guys — is facing an unparalleled set of pressures because of the drought.

Despite the precipitation this week, San Jose has gotten less than 40 percent of normal rainfall. State officials told the district last month that they were cutting off allocations from the State Water Project, the dams and canals that pump water from the Delta.

“The basic problem is simply a severe shortage of surface water,” said Joan Maher, a deputy operations manager for the district, who notes that the district is also facing the need to repair Anderson Reservoir, which in the past has supplied farmers with water.

Last week, the district sent out letters to 99 property owners, including 32 farmers, telling them that their supply of water from creeks and pipelines would be shut off by May 1. The district preceded that with a set of automated calls that were not received well by worried farmers.

Precedence

All this hits with particular force on Half Road, where the cherry growers once relied on water pumped out of nearby Coyote Creek.

After years of relative plenty fed by a pipeline from Anderson Reservoir, the farmers now tap directly into the pipeline from San Luis Reservoir. But record low levels of water at the reservoir are expected to make pumping more difficult.

Drought or no drought, the water district has said the farmers will ultimately have to seek more water from wells. But this is a difficult proposition on Half Road, which sits at a high point of agricultural land.

To the south, water flows toward Llagas Creek and the Pacific Ocean. To the north, it flows into Coyote Creek and the bay. The Marianis estimate they might have to drill as deep as 85 feet into a tricky aquifer that has produced dry wells before.

“If they want us to rely on groundwater, they’re going to have to show us where to dig,” Andy told me. “We just don’t think it’s feasible.”

Rush to pump

Adds Jennifer Scheer, the executive director of the Santa Clara County Farm Bureau: “The challenge is that everyone wants to drill a well. If you don’t have an existing well, or you don’t have a pump on it, all of these things are not easy to come by.”

For now, the Marianis think they might be able to get water from the nearby George Chiala Farms, which has three wells. In an emergency, farmers cooperate if they can.

But the orchardists recognize that there is an inevitable change coming to their way of life. Just to the north of the Mariani orchard, new homes are going up as the housing market revives.

“There are people who fall through the cracks, and I think we’re one of them,” Andy Mariani told me with a note of sadness. “By and large, urban and agricultural uses are incompatible.”